The subject matter disclosed herein relates generally to respiratory care systems, and more particularly, to mandatory mechanical ventilation systems.
When patients are medically unable to breathe on their own, mechanical or forced ventilators can sustain life by providing requisite pulmonary gas exchanges for the patients. For example, conventional ventilators typically include electronic and pneumatic systems that control the pressure, flow rates, and/or volume of gases delivered to, and extracted from, patients needing medical respiratory assistance. Such control systems often include numerous user controls, such as knobs, dials, switches, and the like, for interfacing with treating clinicians, who support the patient's breathing by adjusting the pressure, flow rates, and/or volume of the patient's pulmonary gas exchanges, particularly as the condition and/or status of the patient changes. These parameter adjustments are challenging to control accurately, particularly using these conventional systems.
With respect to ventilation, this is a complex process of delivering oxygen to, and removing carbon dioxide from, alveoli within patients' lungs. Thus, conventional ventilators, particularly controlled mechanical ventilation (CMV) systems, include inputs that allow operating clinicians to select and use several modes of ventilation, either individually and/or in various combinations, using different ventilator setting controls. These mechanical ventilators have become increasingly sophisticated and complex, due in part to enhanced understandings of lung pathophysiology. Accordingly, many conventional ventilators are microprocessor-based and equipped with sensors that monitor patient pressure, flow rates, and/or volumes of gases, and then drive automated responses in response thereto. However, as these ventilators become more complicated and provide more options, the number and risk of potentially dangerous clinical decisions increases as well. Thus, clinicians often operate expensive, sophisticated machines, yet few follow clear, concise, and/or consistent guidelines for maximal use thereof. As a result, setting, monitoring, and interpreting ventilator parameters may be reduced to empirical judgment, resulting in less than optimal treatment.
Thus, the overall effectiveness of assisted ventilation ultimately depends on mechanical, technical, and physiological factors, with the clinician-ventilator-patient interface playing an important role. For example, clinicians often need to observe and control several factors to optimize the volume of air that is appropriate given the particular patient. However, it is often difficult for clinicians to observe and control these several factors at the same time.